That and the luck of the marriage draw, perhaps? For Sarah, it seems, the family is the font of all good things, husband and wife equally pulling their weight. For Elizabeth a toxic mixture of power-crazed politics and reckless infidelity seems to have waylaid the golden girl on her path to fulfillment, she and her husband pulling in opposite directions that eventually derailed their utopian project to save the world. We were reading Palin's America by Heart while waiting for the doc at Mass Eye and Ear for our annual checkup this afta. [Good report, glad to tell. We're still seeing pretty straight.] Her message is mostly what Goomp calls "a lot of good stuff it's nice to be reminded of." When one of the Eye and Ear aides caught sight of what we were reading, we exchanged "the look." "Did you watch…" she began tentatively. "You mean 'Sarah Palin's Alaska?'" we replied with enthusiasm. Realizing we shared a taste for the forbidden fruit, she happily admitted her delight with the show and acknowledged she was totally looking forward to next Sunday's episode where actress Kate Gosselin loses it in the face of Sarah's sang froid before the elements. 'Course no one but us die-hard fans is reading Sarah's #2 New York Times best seller, according to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell, who signalled her membership in the PDS tribe with a sudden new respect for GW's Decision Points, #1 on the NYT Bestseller List. No need to read original sources if you've got access to Journolist/Cabalist Central. [Under the radar is #3, The Autobiography of Mark Twain]. As Pete Ingemi said on DaTechGuy on DaRadio Saturday night (Sissy Talks!):

Unlike Sarah, who married her high school sweetheart and stuck by her man through thick and thin, Elizabeth Edwards married a hottie she met in law school who turned out to be a narcissistic, power-hungry monster. We were thinking about her life and the paths not taken as we read this afternoon of Edwards's death at 61 from a metastacizing breast cancer first diagnosed in the final days of her husband's vice-presidential candidacy. Checking out the early obituaries, we found our heart breaking:

"The smartest lawyer I know is my wife, Elizabeth," John Edwards once said.

The loss of their son probably drove a stake through the heart of their marriage:

In 1996, Wade Edwards, who was 16 at the time, was killed in a wreck while driving from Raleigh to the family's beach house on Figure Eight Island, near Wilmington. To deal with her grief, Elizabeth Edwards retired from practicing law and withdrew from interacting with friends. Later, she found solace by spending countless hours in online bereavement chat rooms …

With her husband, she could be intensely affectionate or brutally dismissive. At times subtly, at times blatantly, she was forever letting John know that she regarded him as her intellectual inferior. She called her spouse a “hick” in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a certain book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Oh, he doesn’t read books,” she said. “I’m the one who reads books.”

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I learned a long time ago... no matter what we think is happening in a marriage we never know when looking from the outside in. I didn't like that she stuck with that weasle husband of hers while he ran for President - even though she knew what he was up to.

OTOH we have no idea why she did the things she did and we never will. In the end she didn't have a very happy life and that is sad. She had looks, brains, and money... it wasn't enough.

I really don't see a comparison between her and Sarah Palin at all. Sarah is such a straight shooter. I could never see her putting up with deception from her husband of all people. From what I've seen of her, she would be more likely to walk out with her head held high and go her own way. For whatever reason Elizabeth did just the opposite.

But unless these are combined with intellectual honesty, integrity, and what my grandparent's generation might have called character, then that person's life will be filled with unnecessary hardships and avoidable tragedies.

None of us is the product of our environment. We are the product of the choices we make. We make our choices, and our choices make us.

I agree with Teresa: I see Palin reacting to hypothetical Todd infidelity much more like Jenny Sanford than like either Elizabeth Edwards or Hillary Clinton.

1. Confront him.
2. Get marriage counseling.
3. Try to make it work if he stops affair.
4. When he doesn't, leave the marriage knowing you did all you could for reconciliation while retaining your own self-respect.

That being said, Sarah certainly doesn't diss Todd; she talks him up at every opportunity. With occasional husband/wife aggravation jokes that everyone can relate to.

Plain truth will out, regardless of any de mortuis nihil nisi bonum crap. All of us - all of us Marian - are a mixture of good and bad traits. Elizabeth Edwards was no different. What was different about her was her courage and strength in fighting an horrendous disease. I have a co-worker who is engaged in a similar battle and I have observed up close how much is required to continue the fight. I had another close friend who essentially committed suicide after the death of her son. The fact that Elizabeth Edwards eventually pulled out of her own tailspin is a testament to the steel in her spine.

And quite honestly, her treatment of the faithless cracker to whom she was married, is far less than I would have dealt his sorry butt!

It's tragic that someone as booksmart as Elizabeth, in an era of total liberation for women, devoted her life to promoting an adulterous charlatan like John Edwards, and came within a few votes in the 2008 Iowa primary of succeeding in making him the most powerful person in the world.

@some guy - like I said above - no matter what you hear in the media, we have no idea what was going on in their marriage. None at all.

One day you may be in a situation where people rush to judgment on you based on what they hear without knowing the background facts. At that point you might remember your comment about Elizabeth Edwards. She might well deserve criticism (don't we all) or she might not. We don't know - no matter who claims to have "all the facts".